Sony FDR-AX100

Jeff Harper · June 8th, 2014, 10:46 AM

Noa, I absolutely love the CX 900. this is exactly the same camera as the ax100. it has zebra stripes everything.

of course there's always something to complain about but at least it's minor in this case. not a fan of the magnify button on the right side of the case, its hard for me to find by feel but that just might be me.it's an unbeatable value and I think anyone buying anything else at this price point would be nuts unless they absolutely have to have XLR or wanted / needed dslr. In this form factor what else can approach this cam for iq?

Jeff Harper · June 8th, 2014, 10:48 AM

oh, I've got a comment on battery life! Unbelievable battery life with this camera. I get like 7 hours on a single battery?I love it.

Noa Put · June 8th, 2014, 11:17 AM

Sony must have been asleep when designing the rx10 battery, not like Sony at all, I"m constantly watching at the remaining battery time when shooting with the rx10, takes my attention of the content. :)

Jeff Harper · June 8th, 2014, 11:26 AM

I agree it is a distraction.I've got three batteries so that's enough but like you said you're always having a look at remaining battery power and it takes away from what you're doing.

Dave Blackhurst · June 8th, 2014, 02:38 PM

Funny, all the talk about HDD's made me realize that at least some of the clips are on a slow "green" HDD, and they are playing back in Play Memories Home (while I sort out the OS issues!) and look good and smooth on the 4K TV/monitor. They were not so good in W7... and better from my slightly less aged 7200 RPM drives.

Looks to me like an update to Windows 8 is likely a very good plan for anyone going for 4K. There are definite structural improvements under that darn Play-Skool interface!

I do use Start Menu 8, which brings back the W7 "feel", so that does make it better, and I'll try the new 8.1 updates when I get the chance. Probably do that before sorting the non-working programs and devices... and there are some things that won't carry over from 7 to 8....as usual...

I hated it when I saw the battery choice for the RX10 in the pre-release specs - I wish they had made a little more room and put the bigger standard Alpha battery in instead of the NEX battery... never found the FW50 to be a great power source. Sometimes they don't think through the power requirements for continuous video! Batteries that are "OK" in a still camera may not have the stamina for best video shooting experience! Took me a bit to pick up a few spares that weren't knockoffs, but the knockoffs seem to work fine in the RX where they didn't in the NEX I tried...

@Jeff -
I picked up my AX100 "lightly used", at a no-brainer price, and even if it didn't have 4K, it's a pretty fine handling camera overall!

Jeff Harper · June 8th, 2014, 02:56 PM

Green drives...not my fav. They tend to stop spinning to conserve power and if you're edting anything on that drive it can lock up Vegas. At least that was the case with my WD green drives.

I had serious issues that cleared up immediately when I ditched them probably 4 years ago.

Glad to hear you got a deal also, Dave. I'm most excited about the idea of being able to zoom in during post with they huge resolution.

Re: workstations, new Intel chips coming out late summer and I am likely going to make the jump to the Z99 chipset, or whatever it's called, I forget now.

True 8 core processors should be good for editing.

Ken Ross · June 8th, 2014, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

The 4K adventure continues...

Thought I'd post a bit of an update... since Winders 7 would only make 16Gb available, and I found another 16G for cheap, I decided to upgrade to Win 8... with all the issues... and despite how much I HATE W8...

But, I can report that clips from the AX100 now play perfectly smooth, and look significantly better than I was able to achieve with W7. Not sure if it's the extra RAM now available or the refinements in the OS, or a little of both, but it's worth reporting that an OS upgrade may need to be in the upgrade budget for those considering it!

Vegas is currently broken, and I have activation issues I have to get cleared up with the seller I got the W8 from... IIRC, Vegas has to be reinstalled to work with W8, and looks like I have some problems to overcome before the OS is fully functional... but it was nice to see that 4K can be smooth(er)!

It also bears noting that a few "critiques" of the AX100 were based on trying to play footage on aging hardware/software. Putting old bald tires and cheap gas on a hot rod and then blaming the car for lack of traction and giddyup probably isn't the correct answer.

I didn't realize your AX100 4K clips were not playing smoothly.

I think I mentioned it early on, but WMP with Win 8.1 is now my favorite player for 4K clips. Different players tend to give slightly altered color balances, but WMP has the best combination of sharpness, smooth playback and color accuracy. It seems Win 8.1 is quite 4K friendly.

I never was overly fond of WMP in Win 7. It's a welcome change. And I'm actually fine with Win 8.1.

Dave Blackhurst · June 9th, 2014, 02:22 AM

It wasn't bad, I'd describe it as being able to "see" the 30p "effect". Surprisingly, the Sony app is working well for a change. WMP works well too, so no complaints!

Keep in mind that this was a low budget 4K "system", so if anything is a little "off", you get some strangeness... and my W8.1 seems a bit "off" from again from what W8 was... having a LOT of display related weirdness - quite obviously the OS decided my 4K display was about a 10" screen, and EVERYTHING had to be oversize... slowly figuring out how to get a usable desktop...

Win8/8.1 still feels like a beta to me, but I've run plenty of beta software over the years, so "onward"!

Piotr Wozniacki · June 9th, 2014, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

There maybe some differences with WIN 8. I have just got a Dell 14" New Insperon with WIN 8.1. It will play files from my AX1, 150Mbps 60P in PlayMemories with correct speed sound but with some frame dropping/ video speed. Neither my 6 Core AMD or my i7 3770K on my main editors will do this !!! The Dell is a dual core i7 with 8G RAM the editors , Win 7 Home Premium with 16G RAM. Vegas 12 will not play on main PC unless preview is in draft 1/4 !!!

Ron Evans

Hi Ron,

Please explain to me the above statements, as I don't quite understand why you're saying you cannot get smooth playback of the AX100 native UHD files on a Win7 computer. As to VP 13, I agree that it's impossible to get anything above Preview/Quarter, but outside Vegas and using VLC, I'm getting fluid playback and when watching statistics, very few data blocks are lost. So, is the problem only related to 60p which the AX100 is not even capable of? Or am I missing something?

I'd like to pull a trigger on this little camera plus one of those relatively cheap Samsung 4K monitors (BTW, will it be possible to play directly via HDMI on anything else than Sony's own Bravia TV)?. But at the moment this would be all I can afford; my Vegas edit satation being just a mediocre 2600K CPU I've been wondering if I'll be able to do simple edits and playybacks (especially after your post..

TIA

Ron Evans · June 9th, 2014, 07:11 AM

It may be 60P that is the issue as I do not have any AX100 30P XAVC-S files to try at the moment as I shoot all 60P on the FDR-AX1. Edius Pro 7.31 will play 60P XAVC-S from the AX1 if it is the only file in the project with the occasional stutter.

Ron Evans

Piotr Wozniacki · June 9th, 2014, 07:13 AM

Oops... Sorry, I thought you were talking 24p files from the AX100; didn't realize you have the AX1 :)

Thanks,

Piotr

Dave Blackhurst · June 9th, 2014, 06:34 PM

I connected the HDMI out from the AX100 to the input on my REALLY cheap Seiki 4K TV/"monitor", no problems with connection or playback - that's one reason I have continued "tweaking" the new system, I know it can, I know it can, I know it can....

I will say that even with the grief along the way, a 4K desktop is quite nice for productivity, stills look amazing, and 4K video is amazing when everything is working perfectly. Strangely, where I was getting very smooth playback in W8, the W8.1 upgrade seems to have gone a bit rough again, not bad, but seems not as "right" as it was... somehow I see a complete re-install focused on getting a clean stable W8.1 install....

sigh. life on the bleeding edge...

Dylan Couper · June 11th, 2014, 06:50 AM

I hate this thread...
Every time I see it, it reminds me how much I want to buy an AX100, which is pretty much the last camera I need. But man do I want one. :)

Jeff Harper · June 11th, 2014, 10:52 AM

Well, the AX100 arrived and it seems exactly the same as the CX900, minus the 4K, of course.

The menu is very difficult to operate, it seems almost defective. I will play with it more later, but it's not the same as my CX900, it takes a lot of pressue to acitvate things on the screen. I suspect I have a lemon.

4K or not it looks same on LCD, which I kind of expected since the LCD is not 4K.

Very excited to take it out later and test it.

Noa Put · June 11th, 2014, 11:59 AM

Jeff, I would be very interested in how 4k downsized to 1080p on the ax100 compared to 1080p on the cx900 would look like in regard to resolved detail?

I have heard the cx900/ax100 also have good low light performance, read they even do a bit better then the cx730, if anyone would know of any comparison videos online a link would be greatly appreciated.

June 8th, 2014, 10:46 AM	#1366
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Noa, I absolutely love the CX 900. this is exactly the same camera as the ax100. it has zebra stripes everything. of course there's always something to complain about but at least it's minor in this case. not a fan of the magnify button on the right side of the case, its hard for me to find by feel but that just might be me.it's an unbeatable value and I think anyone buying anything else at this price point would be nuts unless they absolutely have to have XLR or wanted / needed dslr. In this form factor what else can approach this cam for iq? __________________ "The horror of what I saw on the timeline cannot be described."

June 8th, 2014, 10:48 AM	#1367
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 oh, I've got a comment on battery life! Unbelievable battery life with this camera. I get like 7 hours on a single battery?I love it. __________________ "The horror of what I saw on the timeline cannot be described."

June 8th, 2014, 11:17 AM	#1368
Noa Put Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 9,510	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Sony must have been asleep when designing the rx10 battery, not like Sony at all, I"m constantly watching at the remaining battery time when shooting with the rx10, takes my attention of the content. :)

June 8th, 2014, 11:26 AM	#1369
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 I agree it is a distraction.I've got three batteries so that's enough but like you said you're always having a look at remaining battery power and it takes away from what you're doing. __________________ "The horror of what I saw on the timeline cannot be described."

June 8th, 2014, 02:38 PM	#1370
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Funny, all the talk about HDD's made me realize that at least some of the clips are on a slow "green" HDD, and they are playing back in Play Memories Home (while I sort out the OS issues!) and look good and smooth on the 4K TV/monitor. They were not so good in W7... and better from my slightly less aged 7200 RPM drives. Looks to me like an update to Windows 8 is likely a very good plan for anyone going for 4K. There are definite structural improvements under that darn Play-Skool interface! I do use Start Menu 8, which brings back the W7 "feel", so that does make it better, and I'll try the new 8.1 updates when I get the chance. Probably do that before sorting the non-working programs and devices... and there are some things that won't carry over from 7 to 8....as usual... I hated it when I saw the battery choice for the RX10 in the pre-release specs - I wish they had made a little more room and put the bigger standard Alpha battery in instead of the NEX battery... never found the FW50 to be a great power source. Sometimes they don't think through the power requirements for continuous video! Batteries that are "OK" in a still camera may not have the stamina for best video shooting experience! Took me a bit to pick up a few spares that weren't knockoffs, but the knockoffs seem to work fine in the RX where they didn't in the NEX I tried... @Jeff - I picked up my AX100 "lightly used", at a no-brainer price, and even if it didn't have 4K, it's a pretty fine handling camera overall!

June 8th, 2014, 02:56 PM	#1371
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Green drives...not my fav. They tend to stop spinning to conserve power and if you're edting anything on that drive it can lock up Vegas. At least that was the case with my WD green drives. I had serious issues that cleared up immediately when I ditched them probably 4 years ago. Glad to hear you got a deal also, Dave. I'm most excited about the idea of being able to zoom in during post with they huge resolution. Re: workstations, new Intel chips coming out late summer and I am likely going to make the jump to the Z99 chipset, or whatever it's called, I forget now. True 8 core processors should be good for editing. __________________ "The horror of what I saw on the timeline cannot be described." Last edited by Jeff Harper; June 8th, 2014 at 03:34 PM.

June 9th, 2014, 02:22 AM	#1373
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 It wasn't bad, I'd describe it as being able to "see" the 30p "effect". Surprisingly, the Sony app is working well for a change. WMP works well too, so no complaints! Keep in mind that this was a low budget 4K "system", so if anything is a little "off", you get some strangeness... and my W8.1 seems a bit "off" from again from what W8 was... having a LOT of display related weirdness - quite obviously the OS decided my 4K display was about a 10" screen, and EVERYTHING had to be oversize... slowly figuring out how to get a usable desktop... Win8/8.1 still feels like a beta to me, but I've run plenty of beta software over the years, so "onward"!

June 9th, 2014, 07:11 AM	#1375
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 It may be 60P that is the issue as I do not have any AX100 30P XAVC-S files to try at the moment as I shoot all 60P on the FDR-AX1. Edius Pro 7.31 will play 60P XAVC-S from the AX1 if it is the only file in the project with the occasional stutter. Ron Evans

June 9th, 2014, 07:13 AM	#1376
Piotr Wozniacki Inner Circle Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Poland Posts: 4,086	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Oops... Sorry, I thought you were talking 24p files from the AX100; didn't realize you have the AX1 :) Thanks, Piotr __________________ Sony PXW-FS7 \| DaVinci Resolve Studio; Magix Vegas Pro; i7-5960X CPU; 64 GB RAM; 2x GTX 1080 8GB GPU; Decklink 4K Extreme 12G; 4x 3TB WD Black in RAID 0; 1TB M.2 NVMe cache drive

June 9th, 2014, 06:34 PM	#1377
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 I connected the HDMI out from the AX100 to the input on my REALLY cheap Seiki 4K TV/"monitor", no problems with connection or playback - that's one reason I have continued "tweaking" the new system, I know it can, I know it can, I know it can.... I will say that even with the grief along the way, a 4K desktop is quite nice for productivity, stills look amazing, and 4K video is amazing when everything is working perfectly. Strangely, where I was getting very smooth playback in W8, the W8.1 upgrade seems to have gone a bit rough again, not bad, but seems not as "right" as it was... somehow I see a complete re-install focused on getting a clean stable W8.1 install.... sigh. life on the bleeding edge...

June 11th, 2014, 06:50 AM	#1378
Dylan Couper Wrangler Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia Posts: 8,314	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 I hate this thread... Every time I see it, it reminds me how much I want to buy an AX100, which is pretty much the last camera I need. But man do I want one. :) __________________ Need to rent camera gear in Vancouver BC? Check me out at camerarentalsvancouver.com

June 11th, 2014, 10:52 AM	#1379
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Well, the AX100 arrived and it seems exactly the same as the CX900, minus the 4K, of course. The menu is very difficult to operate, it seems almost defective. I will play with it more later, but it's not the same as my CX900, it takes a lot of pressue to acitvate things on the screen. I suspect I have a lemon. 4K or not it looks same on LCD, which I kind of expected since the LCD is not 4K. Very excited to take it out later and test it. __________________ "The horror of what I saw on the timeline cannot be described."

June 11th, 2014, 11:59 AM	#1380
Noa Put Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 9,510	Re: Sony FDR-AX100 Jeff, I would be very interested in how 4k downsized to 1080p on the ax100 compared to 1080p on the cx900 would look like in regard to resolved detail? I have heard the cx900/ax100 also have good low light performance, read they even do a bit better then the cx730, if anyone would know of any comparison videos online a link would be greatly appreciated.